Microscopic Mechanism for Shear Thickening of Non-Brownian Suspensions

Condensed Matter journal club

Microscopic Mechanism for Shear Thickening of Non-Brownian Suspensions

  • Event time: 11:30am
  • Event date: 4th October 2013
  • Speaker: Mike Cates (Formerly School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh)
  • Location: Room 2511,

Event details

Abstract

We propose a simple model, supported by contact-dynamics simulations as well as rheology and friction measurements, that links the transition from continuous to discontinuous shear thickening in dense granular pastes to distinct lubrication regimes in the particle contacts. We identify a local Sommerfeld number that determines the transition from Newtonian to shear-thickening flows, and then show that the suspension's volume fraction and the boundary lubrication friction coefficient control the nature of the shear-thickening transition, both in simulations and experiments.
PRL 111 article 108301 (2013)
pdf version
There is also a connected paper entitled 'Discontinuous shear thickening of frictional hard-sphere suspensions' by Ryohei Seto, Romain Mari, Jeffrey F. Morris, Morton M. Denn which can be downloaded from the archive at 'connected work'

Authors

Nicolas Fernandez, Roman Mani, David Rinaldi, Dirk Kadau, Martin Mosquet, Hélène Lombois-Burger, Juliette Cayer-Barrioz, Hans J. Herrmann, Nicholas D. Spencer, Lucio Isa

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